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Origins of the term and concept
Caucasoid race is a term used in physical anthropology to refer to people of a certain range of anthropometric measurements [3]. The concept of a "Caucasian race" or Varietas Caucasia was first proposed under those names by the German scientist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840).[4] His studies based the classification of the Caucasian race primarily on skull features, which Blumenbach claimed were optimized by the Caucasian Peoples.[5] Blumenbach writes: Caucasian variety - I have taken the name of this variety from Mount Caucasus, both because its neighbourhood, and especially its southern slope, produces the most beautiful race of men, I mean the Georgian; and because all physiological reasons converge to this, that in that region, if anywhere, it seems we ought with the greatest probability to place the autochthones (birth place) of mankind.[5] Populations, formerly called "varieties," are no longer distinguished by Latin names, according to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. The Caucasus was historically an area of fascination for Europeans.[citation needed] Prometheus and Jason and the Argonauts were myths featured in the Caucasus.[citation needed] Greek mythology considered women from the Caucasus to have magical powers.[6] In Greek mythology, this area was thought of as a kind of hell since Zeus imprisoned many Titans who opposed him (e.g. Prometheus) there. Image:Kalashg.jpg A Kalash girl from Pakistan
For Blumenbach the beauty of the slave women from the Caucasus came to associate the word Caucasian with "enslaved embodiments of vulnerability". Blumenbach was enthralled by the beauty he claimed to see in exemplarary Georgian skulls, so he named his racial type after the famed beauty of the Caucasian peoples. After Blumenbach's time, the term Caucasian was no longer associated with peoples from the Caucasus but continued to be used as a racial indicator.[6] With the development of racial theory the term Caucasoid (Caucasian-like) also came into use to encompass a larger grouping of populations with similar skull-shapes, including many North African, South Asian and Middle Eastern peoples.[6] Carleton Coon did not use the term Caucasian and Caucasoid interchangeably. He used the term "Caucasian" or "caucasic" to reference the subdivision of Caucasoids located around the Caucasus.[7] Later uses of the termWith the turn away from racial theory in the late 20th century the term "Caucasian" as a racial classification fell into disuse in Europe. Thus, in The United Kingdom, "Caucasian" is more likely than in the United States to refer to people from the Caucasus, although it may still be used as a racial classification. [8] In Australia and New Zealand, the term "Caucasian" is mainly used in police offender descriptions[citation needed]. In New Zealand, the terms more commonly used to describe white people are Pākehā or "European New Zealander". In Australia the more common terms are White or Anglo-Celtic Australian; also despite "Aussie" seemingly being a generic term it is often applied to Anglo-Celtic Australians with the intent of excluding other Australians (Used by both those who are classed as "Aussies" and those that aren't)[9]. United StatesIn the United States, "Caucasian" has primarily been used as a distinction based on skin color, for a group commonly referred to as White Americans, as defined by the government and Census Bureau.[6] The question of a difference between the white race and the Caucasian classification in the United States lead to at least one set of major legal contradictions in the United States Supreme Court in the pre-Civil Rights era. In the case of Ozawa v. United States (1922), the court ruled that a law which extended U.S. citizenship only to "whites" did not apply to fair-skinned people from Japan, because:
However a year later, the same court was faced with the trial of United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923). The court ruled that a person from the Indian subcontinent could not become a naturalized United States citizen, because they were not "white". The Supreme Court conceded that anthropologists had classified Indians as Caucasians, and thus the same race as whites, as defined in Ozawa. However, it concluded that "the average man knows perfectly well that there are unmistakable and profound differences," and denied citizenship. Sutherland found that while Indians were indeed anthropologically Caucasian, the framers of the Constitution could never have intended letting Bhagat Singh Thind enter the country and be naturalized. Sutherland commented "the average man knows perfectly well that there are unmistakable and profound differences", leveraging the common man's understanding of Caucasian, meaning white, and hence Thind could not be eligible for citizenship since he looked distinctively different from this common man's notion. Rather than create a new classification, Sutherland found Indians to be Asian, subjecting them to preexisting anti-Asian laws passed nationally and in California under the heavy lobbying of the Asiatic Exclusion League. CaucasoidImage:Skullcauc.gif Typical Caucasoid skull In 1934, Carleton S. Coon redefined Caucasian race as Caucasoid race as one of five racial categories. The other four races that Coon defined were the Mongoloid race, the Australoid race, the Negroid race, sometimes referred as Congoid and the Capoid race. These racial classifications are made on the basis of physical features.[10] Sarah A Tishkoff and Kenneth K Kidd state, "Despite disagreement among anthropologists, this classification remains in use by many researchers, as well as lay people."[11] According to Leonard Lieberman, Rodney C. Kirk, and Alice Littlefield, the concept of race has all but been completely rejected by modern mainstream anthropology.[12] The European Bioinformatics Institute defines Caucasoid as an ethnic group (rather than a race) which has "historical origins in Europe, North Africa or Southwestern Asia, including India". The Institute identifies eight ethnic groups: American Indian, Australian Aboriginal, Black, Caucasoid, Hispanic, Mixed, Oriental and Pacific Islander.[13]. The Oxford English Dictionary defines Caucasoid as as noun or adjective meaning Of, pertaining to, or resembling the Caucasian race.[14] The suffix -oid can indicate "a similarity, not necessarily exact, to something else"[15], so Caucasoid can mean "resembling" the Caucasian race, itself a term with an inexact definition. Likewise, it can mean pertaining to or belonging to the Caucasian race. In the past, the United States National Library of Medicine used the term Caucasoid as a "racial stock" term (the other "racial stocks" were Australoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid). The "racial stock" categorization scheme was replaced in 2004 with Continental Population Groups which focuses on geographic origins.[16] Genetics
Our evidence for clustering should not be taken as evidence of our support of any particular concept of “biological race.” In general, representations of human genetic diversity are evaluated based on their ability to facilitate further research into such topics as human evolutionary history and the identification of medically important genotypes that vary in frequency across populations.[18] Neil Risch, Professor of Human Genetics from Stanford University [20] [21] and 3 other scientists also argue that populations in their research "clustered into the five continental groups", one of which is the "Caucasian branch". The also add: "More recently, a survey of 3,899 SNPs in 313 genes based on US populations (Caucasians, African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics) once again provided distinct and non-overlapping clustering of the Caucasian, African-American and Asian samples...The results confirmed the integrity of the self-described ancestry of these individuals" [22] See also
Books
Footnotes
es:Caucasoide pt:Caucasiano zh:白色人种 References
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